


Consideration

by WingsOfTime



Category: Dragon Age: Inquisition
Genre: Advisors, Dragon Age Quest: Before the Dawn, Dragon Age Quest: Of Somewhat Fallen Fortune, Dragon Age Quest: Protect Clan Lavellan, Dragon Age Quest: The Left Hand of the Divine, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-11-03
Updated: 2016-11-03
Packaged: 2018-08-28 18:02:54
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 511
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8456386
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/WingsOfTime/pseuds/WingsOfTime
Summary: She is there for them, and then, in time, they are there for her.





	

With the news comes a soft word, a quick knife, the stroke of her pen and the spark of a match lighting her candle. She writes, and plans, and plans more, and suggests.

Leliana wants to send assassins. Josephine can see the anger in her old friend, in the coolness of the offer and the steady, sharp line of her body when she smoothes her hand down on the creases of her report. Josephine refuses.

The Inquisitor considers them both, as she always does, but it is different, also, this time. She looks straight into Josephine, eyes iced as the chillness of a heart, but warm, and says to her, "Alright; this is your ground. I trust you. What is your plan?"

And they execute it, and it works, smoothly.

The Inquisitor lights her candle, not with a spark but with a whisper of her fingers kissing the wick. Magic.

~*~

It is not uncommon for her to drop by his office while she is doing her rounds, and maybe she would wait and talk with him for a bit. This time, she half turns, and the act is not even disguised as an afterthought.

"Cullen," she asks, "Are you sure?"

He tastes wind and blood and salt and screams. He knows what she is asking. He will taste those things there forever if he goes, even for Samson, and the lyrium will sing to him in a harsh and violent orchestra.

"Something could go wrong," the Inquisitor says, looking at him steadily. "And I don't know what."

She is a rock amidst a sea of red, even so. Everything could go wrong.

"I am sure," he answers.

~*~

"She had me," Leliana says.

Her fist is closed around her heart. It beats, an unknown melody, one she has not listened to for far too long. A rose blooms inside of it. She feels like she has been the petals who have forgotten to look for sunlight, pressed too tightly to each other.

Her hood is heavy. It hides her, sometimes, when she forgets, slim fractures of moments no one knows about. She takes it off, maybe. Once, she had gone to tea with Josephine, and the sunlight had warmed gold into her hair and the back of her neck.

Justinia had helped her, once, long ago. Had been like a mother to her. Now the threads of that are gone, faded into the past like silk in a dry wind.

"She freed you," says the Inquisitor.

~*~

 

The Royal Sixteen looks at her with soft eyes, blinking with lashes that fall like snow.

"He is beautiful," breathes Josephine.

The Inquisitor tilts her head, almost looking back slightly. "Thank you," she tells them, "My clan."

"You never told us," Cullen says, out of a blue that is all around them, "What 'lethallan' means, and why you call us that."

"You know," she replies.

"Inquisitor." Leliana's hand touches briefly on her shoulder, quiet, then is gone. "What is his name?"

She looks at the hart. "He will tell me," she says, "When he is ready."

 

~*~


End file.
